8 Best Alternatives to Notepad++ for Mac OS

Notepad++ is one of the most advanced and popular code text editors for Windows OS. It has Syntax Highlighting, customizable interface, macro recording and regular expression search & replaces makes it a great text editor to work with complex text data and documents. The main problem is that Notepad++ is not available for the MacOS. So instead of Notepad++ here, we suggest some best alternatives to Notepad++ for the MacOS which provides almost same functionalities and that will work on the MacOS.

Best Alternatives to Notepad++ text editor for MacOS

1. Atom (Free)

Atom was created by the GitHub team. It was created and built from scratch for online creation. The biggest advantage atom has over other code editors is that is it is “Hackable to the core”. If it doesn’t do something that you want it to do, you can change it. Atoms support the installation of packages, which people post all the time. Installing different packages can change how Atom works. Example – you can change linter, cursor position history manager, file icons, themes, etc. Atom can be edited and tweaked with HTML and JavaScript. So there is no need of knowing complicated programming languages to customize it and make it your own.

Since Atom is open source package it includes a lot of useful additions. Example – Modal control, project management, GitHub conflict management, color display, and Highlighter for some cutting edge language. As it is closely related to GitHub, it is one of the best code editors available in the market.

2. Brackets (Free)

If paying for a code editor is not your thing, you can try Adobe’s Brackets. It is one of the most viable alternatives to Notepad++ for MacOS. The Brackets editor includes a great feature called Extract. This feature lets you get font, gradient, color, and measurement info from a PSD file automatically, and turn it into clean CSS. This features main work is that it will significantly reduce the time taken to turn a PSD(Photoshop document) into a website. There are new features and extensions for the brackets software releasing every few weeks, and hence this makes Brackets a constantly evolving software. Some recent features and extensions include the addition of instant search, text folding, CSS hints, etc.

There are a lot of extensions which will further increase the functionality of Brackets. Features like Git integration, auto formatting, code folding, JSHint support, and a lot of themes to make you match brackets with your computer’s theme and visuals. You can set it up however you want.

3. Komodo Edit (Free)

For developers, Komodo has an Integrated development environment (IDE) and is a very popular one among the developers. Not everyone requires an entire IDE. So there is a light version of the Komodo IDE known as Komodo Edit. It includes some of the core features like autocomplete, markdown viewing, multi-language support, change tracking, etc. There are a lot of GitHub repositories which provide extensions and themes for the app and for IDE as well. This app doesn’t have a wide range of features that you will find in other text editors. But Komodo edit was created by a team behind a very successful IDE, so you can be assured that it will contain the features you need.

Like all the other editors there are a variety of extensions that you can download to add further functionality to the editor. Well, it is still not clear that which extensions will work with Komodo edit and which will work with Komodo IDE, there are some useful packages you can get for free. Komodo is also integrated with Kopy.io.

4. jEdit (Free)

The editor is self-described as “mature programmer’s text editor”. jEdit has a lot of features that you will find in Windows OS, MacOS, and Linux based text editors. Example – it includes shortcuts that are pre-mapped for the Emacs and MacOS, markers help you quickly return to the marked position, unlimited clipboard lets us copy and paste any amount of text you need, keyboard shortcuts are present for almost everything, split windows can be used for efficient editing, and the rectangular selection will help you select your text faster. The looks of the editor may be deceiving but coding was kept in mind while making this app. jEdit is highly editable and customizable in nature so that you can match it to your needs.

jEdit is a very large network maintained by developers working from all across the whole world. These include the people who donate their time in developing extensions for the program. Just by getting involved with jEdit you could learn more about programming and also find a community that shares all your interest in hacking text editors.

5. TextWrangler (Free)

Bare Bones Software, BBEdit is one of the industries standards for code editing. Since most of the people do not want to pay $50 just for a text editor, TextWrangler was launched. TextWrangler is the younger brother of BBEdit IDE and includes a lot of features which makes it a great way to code and develop. Features like integrated access to Unix Scripting using Shebang menu, syntax highlighting, the creation of a language module, and languages can be automatically guessed. Features of other kinds of plain text editors are also included. Example – Multi-file search, Unicode viewing, spellcheck, built-in text transformations, etc.

BBEdit offers a lot of additional features like Git integration, a powerful Clipping system, ability to work with Automator, and HTML Tools. TextWrangler does not support these features but is a very capable text editor. The convenience with which TextWrangler works you will be tempted to spend $50 for upgrading to BBEdit. It has even more powerful features.

6. Visual Studio Code (Free)

Microsoft’s free text editor for Windows is also available for Mac and Linux. The main highlight features include keyboard centric editing, multiple number cursors, support for Regex, automatic and real-time API description, linting, Git control, debugging, 30 major language support, it also supports modern web languages, and is a fantastic option for those who are looking to develop for the web.

The Visual studio family includes Visual Studio Community. It is a full multi-platform IDE. Services are provided by Visual Studio Online for development teams. Using all of these apps together will let you score a huge collaborative coding project. Without paying a hefty sum of money for collaboration tools.

7. MacVim (Free)

A list of text editors can’t be complete without MacVim. It is a clone of the Unix editor Vi which includes all the classic features. It also includes more useful new ones. There is a pretty huge curve of learning, but still, Vim is the best solution and the most used editor by many programmers. It can replace an IDE if you do not need all the very advanced features that heavy programs provide. Features like error detection., customizability, syntax highlighting, and the familiarity with Vi. Makes it one of the most used editors in MacOS Programming Community.

Vim is available for a huge variety of systems. There are different versions for PC, Mac, Unix, DOS, etc, and even have a mobile version so that you can code on iPhones and Android. Vim has a huge following, it may take some time to be familiarized with. But once you are comfortable with it you will never use another text editor.

8. TextMate ($58)

TextMate is one of the few code editors available which are exclusive only for MacOS. It combines all the features of Emacs and MacOS into a single text editor. It is optimized for programmers as well as designers and can be used instead of a full IDE for most of the coders. Highlighting and folding syntax, support for Regex and Gerp, jumping between the locations within a document with visual bookmarking, the running shell commands from within a document, etc. All of these features make TextMate a very robust and useful app. Xcode is supported by this app and can be used to build Xcode Projects. Hence, you can get and work will all the awesome features of TextMate with MacOS’s built-in IDE.

TextMate is designed to work with multi-file large projects which are a very common requirement of programmers. By automating most of the manual work as possible which can be very tedious. TextMate is a great alternative to Notepad++ for MacOS. If you spend a great amount of time with macros you can make your coding efficiencies increase.

Now you can choose a Text Editor for your Mac

With all the great options suggested above, and almost all of them being free you will be able to find the one which suits you and your needs the most. Therefore no matter what we are trying to do you will find a perfect tool for it. And if you find the need for more powerful features you can go with the paid options. These options will cover almost all of your needs with just about anything that you would like to do.

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